A pediatrician who has spent her career treating other people's children had no idea how to help her own 20-year-old son, who sat next to her in the car 20 pounds lighter, flunked out of college, and thousands of dollars in the hole — all because the state decided your kid's ruin is a revenue stream.

This is the bipartisan betrayal nobody in Washington or your state capital wants to talk about. The same political class that lectures you about climate change, pronouns, and the dangers of a beer at a tailgate quietly legalized, promoted, and profited from an industry that hooks children before they can vote. ESPN reports that a 2025 Common Sense Media survey found more than one-third of kids aged 11 to 17 had gambled in the past year, and one in eight had already bet on sports. A counselor at GamFin.org told ESPN he has seen families with 11-year-olds seeking treatment and once treated a 14-year-old who was six figures in debt. These are children. The house doesn't care.

The numbers get worse from there. A 2023 NCAA survey found two-thirds of college-aged men have bet on sports; an SMU senior estimated that among his fraternity brothers, the rate was 90 to 95 percent. Students gamble through sportsbook apps, daily fantasy sites, offshore books, campus bookies, and prediction markets — all of it a tap away on the phone you bought them for school. Dr. James Borchers, the Big Ten's chief medical officer, told ESPN that gambling has risen to the top of the conference's list of concerns, alongside or even above alcohol.

And it happens inside a financial pressure cooker that families already can't handle. The Detroit Free Press reports that universities now factor thousands of dollars in hidden expenses into their cost-of-attendance estimates — books, transportation, software, homework platforms, health fees, club dues — costs that don't come in one bill and pile up when students can least afford them. Detroit Mercy estimates $1,468 for books and supplies alone. The National Retail Federation found back-to-school spending hit an average of $1,438 this year, a record. Now add a gambling habit to that ledger. ESPN's profile of Amit — the Cincinnati honors student who blew his rent money and had to be pulled from school weeks before finals — is what that looks like in practice.

Who wins? The state. Tax revenue flows from every losing bet. The sports leagues win too — partnerships, sponsorships, ad revenue, all of it built on the backs of kids like Amit and the Texas Tech quarterback who had to enter rehab. ESPN noted Brendan Sorsby's story became one of the biggest in sports this spring. Both parties greenlit this. Republican legislatures and Democratic governors alike signed off, because a cut of the action is easier than fiscal discipline.

The same establishment that spent decades telling you cigarettes were a public health crisis, that alcohol needed regulation, that fossil fuels were sin — that establishment looked at an industry that puts 14-year-olds six figures in debt and said: legalize it, advertise it, tax it. Because when the house wins, the house is the state.

The question isn't whether Americans should be free to make their own choices. They should. The question is why the government gets a cut of the destruction it enabled — and why nobody in either party has to answer for it.